Disturbing video of a seagull eating a plastic bag

If you wonder why plastic bag bans are important, here's your demonstration. This is just one bird out of millions that consume our used plastic -- just one species out of thousands of species that are killed daily by eating what they think is food. (And don't say, "Well it just shows how stupid they are," because that's about the lamest response one can muster on this issue. The fact is we're allowing plastic to enter into the food chain eventually to eat it ourselves so we're the stupid ones.)

I have to admit, I really don't get how the videographer couldn't stop the seagull from eating the bag. I guess I understand the need to witness the full event in order to make the point, and stopping this one incident wouldn't stop the same bird from eating a bag found a half a mile away. I get it. But it's still hard to watch this being filmed knowing someone was there to stop it, and didn't. And yet -- that's the role we play every day. We have the ability to stop this ourselves, every day, if we choose to end the consumption of single-use plastic.

So, there you have it. A pretty disturbing video that may help hammer home the point of just how bad single-use plastic really is.